Grounding.

Can anyone give their best grounding techniques? I definitely feel the need to be more "grounded"...

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What seems to help me a little is touching my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

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Just a little bit of daydreaming sitting with your back up against a large tree might work. I does with with me. The simpler the better in my case. When I engage in a more involved meditation, even if it was meant for grounding, I get all energized again.

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i highly recommend Mystress Angelique's Grounding Visualization, as do so many other folks on the list... it has changed my life, and is the foundation of the powerfully gentle and balanced way that my K now flows...

http://www.list-server.net/kundalini/ground.html

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Working with clay is a very grounding experience. You put your hands into the earth (clay) and mold it into something new. The smell and feel of clay has a tremendous psychological effect. It's so strong I can feel it wash over me as soon as I dig my hands in. It's very calming. Try it today! Art centers in your area will probably have a few pottery classes.

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If you are not eating meat then you may want to include some... it is very grounding... for a short time during the process i found that for myself it was needed....

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Not just meat... though if you do, try to choose organic, free range types...eating root vegetables can also offer some help... along with the tree meditation... take off your shoes, loosen any tight clothing, sit comfortably & breathe deeply & easily... feel your spine as the trunk of a multicolored energy tree with its roots firmly lodged in the earth & your branches unfurling against the sky or sit with your back against a fire ant free tree & simply breathe or try the microcosmic orbit meditation...

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Get some good deep tissue massage. After a few sessions you'll start to feel the difference in your body. Once the body connects in kinesthetically it will be easier to get back there.

A lack of groundedness can be caused by fear, the flight/fright response. The adrenals influence the base chakra. Fear is the creation of thought. As lao zi said, "Stop your think, end your problems."

Usually energy follows thought. In meditation (observation without judgement)the reverse can take place. We can observe our energy, without judgement, and the thoughts that arise from that flow. In this way we get to see our conditioning as it dissolves, instead of just changing the conditioning.

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I find Hatha Yoga grounds me!

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I have a short, version of the sunset sal[ute], almost a 2 breath ground, (although now it is a little longer)...

any was,,, bend over and touch that ground (forward strecth)
now imagine a sword comming up out of the ground thru a pool of water.
put your hand in prayer position and then raise the up to chest level
as you come out of your forward bend. (prayer hands = sword)
now spred legs a little farther apart. place sword over head and
go into a slight back bend,
turn hands into triangle, palms up, spread open palms towards sky,
bring down the energy of father sky (like a lightning bolt)
send it thur your body to the center of the earth,
lower hands to side, now energy comes back up from the center of
the earth, as you raise hands and place the palms to your heart wile
breathing in

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I would add the Dragon & Tiger qigong for grounding (even better, balancing).

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on another list we were just talking about grounding... we had quite a variety of responses.... some suggestions...

*ground deep in the mother earth's core...sending cords down to her *M&M's (most kinds of chocolate will work) *meat ( it's not the quantity that so much counts)
*showers
*sex
*dancing
*jumping up and down on the ground
*laying on the grass
*touching trees
*asking the stone people to help you
*drink lots of good water
*actually anything that makes the body feel it's physicality is good
*having someone push and pat down on your shoulders with the intention of you returning into your body

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These are very powerful, and can result in the release of a lot of emotional baggage.

You can use any one or all of them .. and they work in different ways, depending on the symptoms of ungroundedness which are being experienced.

1. When going to sleep at night .. or in a lying meditation.

Breathe in through the soles of the feet and out through the top of the head .. then breathe in through the top of the head and out through the soles of the feet. (use both nostrils at the same time here .. )

This sets up a wave motion through the body ..

2. When energy is rampant .. or when you feel the need.

The fingers of one hand placed in the centre of the top of the head .. the fingers of the other hand placed in the centre of the perineum (the muscle joining the two halves of the pelvic floor, between the legs between the genitals and the anus). Hold this position for 10 minutes .. then switch hands for another 10 minutes.

3. Any time you feel light headed .. or heavy in the shoulders.

Sit cross legged on the floor leaning up against something .. or outside leaning against a big tree. Hold the sole of the right foot with the left hand and the sole of the left foot with the right hand. Breathe normally and maintain the position for as long as you feel like it....

These methods are very powerful because they are simple and do not rely on anything else than what you already have or are .. and do not require visualisation or creating anything that is not already part of you. They encourage the reconnection of the body natural energy flow.

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Of all the ways I worked with grounding the energy, as in physical exersize, working the chakras, eating dense protein, mentally processing the emotions until they "lift" and change from fear to their more expansive energies etc.... one of the most elegant ways was the following:

One night, I took a friends suggestion and personified the energy in meditation. I was so tired. It was so intense, I just didn't have the energy, but I made myself do it. She came in, beautiful, fiery, strong. I asked her "What do you want of me?" She replied "Forge". I asked her "How can we do this without pain?" She opened her arms and I went to her and just felt my self being held. It comforted me. I felt myself let go. I felt the energy become full in me, alive. I could feel the energy change. When I came out of meditation, it was different, this kept the potency (unlike the other ways to lift or turn seem to lighten the potency).

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We should not forget that grounding is a physical body thing, so that energy can flow through our body from the atmosphere around us to and through the soil of our good earth.
It is electro-magnetism first before we even start thinking the more symbolic kinds of grounding. That is what I like about Susan's list of collected suggestions below.

We live too much on rubber, nylon and concrete that isolate us, carpeting that only increases our static electricity. Many of us we work and live many floors up. Cars isolate us not only from touching the earth with our feet but also from physical contact with things, nature and people we see. A car can be called an 'isolation tank' in the negative sense of the word. Start walking...
Water, water, water? Drinking it may not do the job...
I find in my practice that many ppl. who have neurotic problem have nerve problems. Many also have an aversion to water, bathing, showering,swimming, walking and ...dancing in the rain.

Drinking processed water, even if bottled is almost useless... that's why some of us have to drink so much of the stuff, it has no electro-magnetic qualities anymore. Drink fresh rainwater, stream water, molten snow. ...

Airate you skin, brush yourself vigoriusly, run up a temperature, run up a sweat... the seaty salts are the electrolitic crystals that process solar rays into our nerve ends. (Is that why apes like to pick the from each other?)

Each nerve end in our skin is a little chakra, and we have so many, something like flowerbuds on the branches of fruit trees. But before the buds develop, so to say, these nerve ends have to be exposed to the elements...., yes, earth, water, fire (solar energy), air, space. Grounding is an earth-universe binding and harmonizing process.

When we are not grounded, when we don't have our feet firmly planted in the soil, these buds and shrivel and will not produce the leaves and flowers and eventually be fruitous. We are like autonomous freely ambulating fruit trees, the dancing kind, Krishna and the Gopis in the pond, Ramakrishna like singing and dancing in that warm and humid Indian climate.

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I would like to share my methods with you

Preparation:

Take a shower or bath and make sure you genuinely sigh from the heart at least 3 times with increasing depth and length. If in the bath allow the water to drain completely taking with it all your worries down the plug hole. If in the shower turn off the water and stand still allowing some of the water to evaporate off your body and feel the soothing cool air as vividly as you can-Imagine you are a brand new factory model and are oozing and steaming in peaceful excellence.

1)Be seated in the lotus position and breath in and out deeply reducing your breath volume by about 60% with each inspiration until you can imagine that inner and outer compartments are equal. Continue until there is literally just a trickle of breath leaving your lips and the tiniest of vacuums drawing a new breath in.

2)Be mindful that all bodily tension and unruly thoughts are actually the fallen or scattered energy of peacefulness. Do not fight distractions or annoyances. Embrace them as tho they are your dispersed flock of sheep which if lovingly collected will gather back in the fold of central peace and attention. You must relax each one individually as it occurs as a lost child of peace and it will ease and dissolve. Imagine this flock to be unto runaway trickles of mercury on a flat surface which you must catch and return to the central resovoir of stillness by moving your attention around keeping track of where your consciousness is. You must be able to detect the current disguise of this runaway peacefullness be it an itch, your plans for the day, or the swallowing reflex and remember that it isnt an independent force but simply your fallen goal incognito. This energy of peacefullness is always changing from one thing to another trying to elicit impatience or a reaction from one who doesnt realise its true name. If one wrongly believes in the agency of these forces as beyond oneself then we fall into a temporary trance until we remember that its energy needs to be named and returned to the goal at hand.

3)So once you start to recognise the energy name it and then recall its true nature as perfect stillness and peace. You have just created a mimetic wave which is identical to the sensation and will cancel it out through destructive interference returning this misspent energy to your goal. Just remember that during meditation we can become obsessed like a dog chasing its own tail not realising the wagging tail is part of us and is misspent peace. Dont react , instead feel it moreso and gently return it to its rightful place. The solution is always in the problem. Transmute the reckless energy by reminding it of its true home. Dont thrash around in the water trying to find your reflection. let it settle and relax the mind from jumping from tree to tree. Eventually it will realise there is no existential danger and will want to stay put.

4)Imagine this stillness growing until it is almost too much to face and at this point surrender completely. Your mind and body has become as still as a vast lake and above the horizon is as below it and a perfect reflection thereof.

5)If you have chosen a vision to focus on try to see it without looking at it. Dont try to construct it. (the eye that sees without seeing itself).It will become top heavy or lopsided because the right brain will be vying for control over how it looks and the left over the correct proportions. No, just breath through both nostrils whilst remembering what the goal is and through the ida and pingala nadis this will dissolve the master-slave relationship of the two hemispheres and a balanced image will appear in the stillness from activation of the sushuma nadi. Dont try to maintain it by force. Eventually once you have attained an inner stillness you will wish to purposefully stymie your own will by meditating in increasingly distracting millieu which once you have mastered them will lend their energy to support incredible breakthroughs in alacrity and concenhtration which will enable you to subtly direct the traffick of events without. So you stor up the distractions to create the entropy needed for quantum leaps.

One or more of these rules works 90% of the time for me. I find the shower (or bath) is essential and eliminates stubborn thoughts and mental static. I suggest considering at least 45 minutes of this a day and setting an alarm clock.

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buy a grounding strap for your wrist and attach it to something metal.

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Eat a little meat. Have a little sex. Take some water with salt in it and poor it on the ground. Face east. When you breath in tighten your rectum when you breath out relax it. Dion Fortune wrote a book called Psychic Self-Defence.

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Express yourself out in the open. Write your thoughts down in the book. Do something tangible. Your not grounded until you express yourself in the world of form. Most "spiritual" people act as though this world is evil. They avoid doing anything here. Often times they avoid working through their particular Karma. Pay close attention to how you feel and when.

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if you are able to stay grounded during the day to deal with your earthly needs, perhaps you might just let yourself fly away at night... it's probably a good idea to at least do a grounding visualization... but beyond that, consider just surrendering to letting yourself go where your Inner Self wants to take you...

this is just an altenative to think about... i really don't know.. but this is what came from my heart as i read your post...

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night, meaning in the evening while awake, or, while asleep?

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I usually try to stay awake as long as possible, lots of emotional trauma is being released. It happens both while Im awake and asleep usually starts speeding up in the evening through the night when I lay down. I like to stay awake while it is really strong cuz I can dig deeper and help it pull out some of the strongest emotions. But even when I do go to sleep I have dreams that tell me it is still going on.

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